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Assess your current situation
2
Forecast your future needs
3
Identify your staffing gaps
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4
Develop your staffing plan
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Implement and monitor your staffing plan
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Here’s what else to consider
Determining the right staffing levels for your organization is a crucial task that affects your budget, productivity, and employee satisfaction. However, finding the optimal balance between supply and demand of human resources can be challenging, especially in dynamic and uncertain environments. In this article, you will learn some practical steps and methods to help you plan and adjust your staffing levels according to your organizational goals and needs.
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1 Assess your current situation
The first step is to evaluate your current staffing levels and how they align with your strategic objectives, operational requirements, and financial resources. You can use various tools and metrics to measure and analyze your current workforce, such as headcount, turnover, absenteeism, utilization, performance, skills, and competencies. You should also consider external factors that may affect your staffing levels, such as market trends, customer demand, regulations, and competitors.
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A key factor that you also need to keep in mind is that new hires will not be 100% productive on day one. When going through your resource planning, you need to account for time to have new hires ramp up. If you hire three people in January, they will likely not be contributing 100% until March or beyond. It would be unfair on your new hires and a pitfall for your business to expect full performance levels from the outset.
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2 Forecast your future needs
The next step is to anticipate your future staffing needs based on your expected growth, expansion, innovation, or transformation plans. You can use different methods and techniques to forecast your future demand for human resources, such as trend analysis, scenario planning, benchmarking, and gap analysis. You should also account for potential changes and uncertainties that may impact your future staffing levels, such as economic fluctuations, technological disruptions, and employee preferences.
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As the company scales, more staff or better technology will be needed to carry the additional load. Many startups trip up here because they see an influx of sales and overhire, then lose sales momentum and have to make staffing cuts. There is no certainty in life, but careful planning and conservative hiring to meet your scaling goals are essential. Rushed/panic hiring is a big danger zone.
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3 Identify your staffing gaps
The third step is to compare your current and future staffing levels and identify any gaps or imbalances that may exist between them. You can use a simple formula to calculate your staffing gap: Future Demand - Current Supply = Staffing Gap. A positive gap means that you need to hire more staff, while a negative gap means that you need to reduce your staff. You should also assess the nature and magnitude of your staffing gap, such as whether it is temporary or permanent, short-term or long-term, and minor or major.
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4 Develop your staffing plan
The fourth step is to develop a staffing plan that outlines how you will address your staffing gap and achieve your desired staffing levels. Your staffing plan should include specific actions, timelines, responsibilities, and resources for each staffing option that you choose. Some common staffing options are: recruiting, training, outsourcing, redeploying, retaining, or laying off staff. You should also consider the costs, benefits, and risks of each staffing option and how they align with your organizational culture and values.
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5 Implement and monitor your staffing plan
The final step is to implement and monitor your staffing plan and evaluate its effectiveness and outcomes. You should communicate your staffing plan clearly and transparently to all stakeholders, including managers, employees, customers, and suppliers. You should also track and measure your progress and performance against your staffing plan using relevant indicators and feedback mechanisms. You should also review and update your staffing plan regularly and make adjustments as needed to respond to changing conditions and needs.
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6 Here’s what else to consider
This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?
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These days, staffing is primarily driven by the budget more than it is driven by thoughtful consideration of achieving the company's goals without killing off the current staff with burnout. I see CEOs trying to hire an Executive Assistant for $18K salary. Gone are the days when logical evaluation of the need occurred, and what has replaced it is a desperate hope that you can catch the fish you want with the bait you have. Companies must remember that you cannot get champagne with a beer budget. If you cannot afford champagne, go back to your company strategy and scrap 50% of it before you consider hiring anyone.
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You need to perform job and task analysis for the job positions, to determine the competences required for each job position. You also need to evaluate the volume of the different activities, to estimate the number of staff neede in each category, in order to fulfill the requirements applicable to the activities of your organization; you need to factor in also the time needed for training and qualification, for vacations, for travel (if applicable) and for other activities that add up to the core business.
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